


How Strange, Innocence

by Maidenjedi



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 20:11:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3582357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt: "The dragon prince sang a song so sad it made the wolf maid sniffle"</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Strange, Innocence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iorwen107](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=iorwen107).



> Thank you to Vanzetti for beta and helping me get beyond the framework for this. Title from a song by Explosions in the Sky. Written for the GOT Exchange, Jan 2013.

It ended like this:

Warhammer met sword, stag met dragon, and the clash echoed across Westeros. Targaryen reign was at an end, said some. A great Rebellion had come to the Seven Kingdoms. Many believed it came dressed in winter white and crowned with blue roses. And really, in the end, that was how war began. Over beauty, over love.

The smallfolk sang a song of a winter maid and a dragon, about love and dying for it. They believed they sang of their Prince, unaware that the song was old, so old it had no known origin in history. But myth had a way of coming full circle. The winter maid was missing, and the Prince had gone to fight for her.

A crown of roses could not make a queen. But it seemed one could make war.

-

Word came of the battle by raven. "At the Trident," it read, the only decipherable line. The paper was splattered in blood and the handwriting was hurried, cramped. The raven itself was nursing an injury and taken by the maester for binding.

It was agreed, the lady could not be told. They knew little of her; all that had been told them was that she was in need of care and protection, and their silence on what they witnessed was purchased. And that very morning, she had taken to the birthing bed.

-

Lyanna had believed, for a blessed moment, that it would not be so terrible; she need not fear it. It had begun as a discomfort early in the morning, and she knew the child was coming. She had a calmness in her heart - she would see her child soon, and the war would end, it would end and they would be safe. Only a few hours and it would be over. "I feel so little pain," she told her attendants. The septa said nothing, the midwife only nodded.

As labor took her in earnest, the pain was greater than her imagining, all the worse for its benign arrival. "Why is there blood?" she asked, gasping. "Why is there blood?"

-

Far below, another raven fought through rain to deliver its news.

The battle was over. And there had been terrible loss.

-

"Now is not the time," whispered the frantic septa to the man at the door. He had been there before, come to see Lady Lyanna and bring news. The raven had come hours before, they already knew the news. "Now is not the time," said the septa again.

"I must needs speak with her," he said. Lyanna saw him, barely registered him. Howland, she thought, before another wave of pain. She screamed.

"Now is not the time. You will have to return later." The septa pushed on his chest and Lyanna watched, finally meeting Howland's eyes. His face was streaked in mud, he was bruised.

"Was there a battle?" she yelled, breathing hard to beat the next pain. She had to know. The septa shook her head and tried to shut the door, Howland braced it open. "Who is dead?"

Howland bowed his head and the septa took that moment to finally shut the door on him, as Lyanna screamed. She could not tell if she were being ripped apart by birth. Pain rippled through her, bent her forward, and there was more blood.

Lyanna gasped for air and the midwife held her knees back. Lyanna could hardly stand it as she began to push. This wasn't real, it wasn't happening, she wasn't here and it was not happening.

-

An hour later at most, the midwife yelled at her to push again and it was real. The child cried a moment later and Lyanna was urged to take him, hold him, and she could not lift her arms.

She sobbed Rhaegar's name and they shook their heads, the septa and the midwife. They'd been told nothing, but they guessed. All of Westeros probably guessed. The septa urged the babe on Lyanna again, and she did take him then. Her voice was barely audible as she sang to him, the smallfolks' song, a song rarely heard in Westeros in after days.

"Winter's blue roses bloom o'er her grave, and the dragon prince sighs no more...."

-

It was two days before Ned came to her. He had gone to King's Landing, and made excuses from there. Lyanna's condition was not known, her whereabouts secret even from Robert, who believed her safe whilst he fought. And so she may have been, though she carried Rhaegar's child.

He came straight to the tower room and to her bedside. A wet nurse had the child in a corner of the room. Lyanna was pale, feverish and weak. Howland had finally told her all - Robert had beaten Rhaegar, and it was over.

The maester told Ned as he climbed the stairs, she will not last the night. She lost too much blood, and there is nothing we can do.

The full force of the maester's words struck him while he watched her. She struggled to breathe and talk, and he told her to rest, that the child would need her (he would need her). But she insisted.

"No one can know."

Word had reached the tower of Elia Martell's cruel fate.

"Robert. He would not....understand. I cannot...do not let him know. No one must know."

The child's black hair was a blessing, Ned thought. And then, he said the last thing he would ever say to his sister. "I'll raise him as mine. This will remain our secret, Lyanna."

"Promise me, Ned. Promise."

He nodded, tears on his cheeks. When death came for his sister, the septa said, "It is a blessing, my lord."

For whom? he wondered.

 

\---

It had begun like this:

In the halls of lesser lords and smallfolks' taverns, there was a song sung of a winter maid and her dragon prince. This was a song so old the maesters had no written record of it. It told a tale of the winter maid, a child of the snows, whose heart melted for just one fire, who perished by her lover's side.

This was the song Rhaegar Targaryen was singing in the garden in the Red Keep, the day Lyanna Stark fell in love with him.

It was just before the tournament at Harrenhal, and innocence yet reigned in her eyes and his heart. He was wed and she was betrothed, and they knew each other by name only.

She'd been hiding, trying to avoid the festivities, which bored her, and the other girls, who annoyed her. She was desperate to return home, postpone womanhood a little longer in the woods. Summer had finally arrived, after a brutal three-year winter, and she wanted to run, to swim, to fly.

"That is a beautiful song."

She would never forgive herself for speaking up, for calling his attention to herself. His eyes, the improbable lavender of the Targaryens, shone with tears as he looked up. She felt her cheeks flush and she should have walked away, yes, she should have run.

"I...it's nothing. It's just a song," he whispered.

She could not help it. "What makes you so sad, your Grace?"

"A better question might be what does not. Did you never face a future you knew was contrary to your fate?"

A strange statement. "Your Grace, I...."

"No," he smiled. "You wouldn't have. Never mind."

They stood there, gazes locked, each finding it difficult to turn and walk away. They had no reason to speak, and surely there were obligations, duties, places to be. Yet they stood, too far apart for suspicion and too close for comfort.

"What was that song?"

"It does not have a name. My mother used to sing it, sometimes. When I was small."

"Would you sing more of it?" This was bold. Lyanna's nails dug into her palms. Idiot, why do you linger?

Rhaegar was noted for his singing, but he was not aiming to perform here. He did not sing loud - perhaps he did not want the attention, but the effect was such that Lyanna had to come closer to make out the words. Oaths sworn, the dragon prince defiant, the winter maid reluctant and how, in the end, the sun claimed their love, and new oaths were forged in its wake. A new world, because they dared love.

Rhaegar looked up at her, and tears now spilled down her cheeks.

"Why, you too, I see," he whispered, and reached out to wipe them from her cheeks.

"Yes, Your Grace."

"I have a name."

"I dare not say it."

He sighed, and stepped back. "Yes. You are wise. You are Rickard Stark's true daughter." He bowed at the waist. "I must take my leave of you. Good day, Lady Lyanna."

She was flustered, confused, and that always stiffened her back. She sniffed, and curtseyed. "Good day, your Grace."

-

At Harrenhal, tavern songs were popular at the evening feasts, and Rhaegar refused to sing each of the first three nights. But on the fourth, he nodded once, and the hall fell silent as the somber notes Lyanna knew so well filled the air.

The dragon prince and the winter maid, whoever they had been, came alive that night, and the gossip spread. Never mind that the princess was there, fresh from a long lying-in (illness, said the maesters). No, Elia's name passed no lips, as Lyanna captured their imaginations.

The last note sung, Rhaegar took his seat and focused on the Dornish red and the pheasant. Yet silence hung on in the hall, breaths held as glances danced between Rhaegar and Lyanna. It was broken with a laugh. Benjen pinched Lyanna's knee under their table, and pinned her with a look. I know why you blush, he seemed to say, and tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. Attention was diverted in the hall as dancing began again and a court fool told jokes, and Lyanna ducked her head as the tears flowed.

-

She sat perfectly still as he placed the blue rose crown on her head. To refuse him was treason - deadly, with the Mad King looking on - and yet to accept was treason, too. Oberyn Martell told her father so, later, and promised retribution if his sister's heart was broken.

"Elia gave this kingdom its heirs. There is no Stark babe in the Red Keep or all of King's Landing - and there shall be none, Rickard, do you hear me?"

They were in perfect accord. It suited neither of them, this seeming affair - and Rickard believed it so, a dalliance, a flirtation, no scandal as yet. But the roses. The crown. His lady of love and beauty. Rickard decided it was time they all went home.

"Aye, Oberyn. We're agreed. Your sister has nothing to fear from my daughter; we will not need to discuss this again."

And both Rickard Stark and Oberyn Martell believed every word.

 

-

She came to him, once, later. The tournament behind them, the roses faded.

"Do you know the winter prophecy?"

"No," she replied.

"It speaks of a joining of ice and fire, to destroy the last evil. A final winter, and an eternal summer."

She smiled. "Are you proposing something, my Prince?"

He shook his head. "We cannot even speak of it, not really. There are everywhere spies and treachery. But what if the prophecy is real, Lyanna? What then?"

They met like this on occasion, when events conspired to throw them together. It happened, all told, four times, and each time they tarried a little longer, touched a little more, came to love each other better.

The last time, they hardly spoke. Only walked, and held each other as close they dared, and dreamt.

-

 

They had been home a month when Rickard Stark was recalled to King's Landing.

"It is nothing," he told his family. "The King merely requests my presence for treaty negotiations."

He rode away from Winterfell believing exactly that. Never mind that another Hand had died under mysterious circumstances. Never mind that Storm's End and the Vale were said to be preparing for war.

Never mind that even loyal bannermen were calling Aerys "the Mad King" openly now.

Word reached Winterfell of Rickard's imprisonment the same day Lyanna went missing.

Was kidnapped.

Ran away.

There were very different roses in bloom during war. Not blue, but red, spreading quickly from the prick of an arrow.

-

"Winter will come," said the winter maid. "Winter will always come."

"Perhaps," said the dragon prince. "But we will fend it off, together."

-

They were together, and that was what mattered to each.

The story was always told a different way. During the war, it was a brutal kidnapping, Rhaegar turning out to be madder even than his father, and the Targaryen name was a curse throughout the lands. Some would say it justified Elia's death - an eye for an eye, they said.

In later years, when a wistfulness for the years of relative prosperity ran throughout the land, it was a romance. Forbidden love, a dragon prince and a winter maid. And that was somewhat closer to the truth.

Rhaegar believed in prophecy. Lyanna believed in him. But they loved each other, too. And that was their curse.

-

It ended like this:

Lyanna came to her brother for help and hiding, while Rhaegar rode to defend his father and the kingdom. Robert swung his warhammer and with a mighty cry he slew the dragon prince.

The rivers ran with blood, Targaryen and Baratheon and Stark, the minor lords and the great, the smallfolk and more. It was breathtaking, to know love could cause all this. Perhaps it was meant to be and would have regardless - a mad king slain, a new king crowned, allegiances broken and forged anew. But love had done it, and so few knew it.

The song was never heard in the great halls again, but in the taverns where smallfolk gathered at the ends of long days, it was sometimes sung.

_Fire and ice to slay the night / Ice and fire to quell the cold / The winter maid and her dragon prince / Paid the price with blood, not gold_


End file.
